THE DANGERS OF EXTENDING SLAVERY, AND THE CONTEST AND THE CRISIS. TWO SPEECHES OF WILLIAM H. SEWARD. DANGERS OF EXTENDING SLAVERY. DELIVERED IN ALBANY, OCTOBER 12, 1855. Hail to the capital of New York ! Venerable for its antiquity, and yet dis- tinguished for its loyalty to Progress, Liberty, and Union. This capital is dear to me. It has more than once sent me abroad with honorable functions, and even in those adverse seasons which have happened to me, as they must happen to all representative men, it has never failed to receive me at home again with sympathy and kindness. Doubly honored be the banner of the stars and stripes, which here takes on its highest significance, as it waves over the halls where equal representatives make the laws which regulate the lives ef equal freemen. Honored be Justice, whose statue surmounts the dome above us ! Blind, that she may not through either passion or prejudice dis- criminate between the rich and the poor, the protestant and catholic, the native- born and the exotic, the freeman and him whose liberties have been cloven down, and weighing with exact balance the rights of all classes and all races of men. Old familiar echoes greet my ear from beneath these embowered roofs ! The voices of the Spencers, of Kent, and Van Rensselaer, and Van Vechten, of the genial Tompkins, of Clinton the great, and the elder Clinton, of King and Hamilton, of Jay the pure and benevolent, and Schuyler the gal- lant and inflexible. The very air that lingers around these arches breathes inspirations of moral, social, of physical enterprise, and of unconquerable freedom. You, old, tried, familiar friends, ask my counsel whether to cling yet longer to traditional controversies and to dissolving parties, or to rise at once to nobler aims, with new and more energetic associations ! I do not wonder at your suspense, nor do I censure caution, or even timidity. Fickleness in political associations is a weakness, and precipitancy in public action is a crime. Con- sidered by itself, it is unfortunate to be obliged to separate from an old party, and to institute a new one. The new one may exhibit more enthusiasm for a time, but it must also for a time lack cohesion and discipline. The names of parties are generally arbitrary, and not at all indicative of their characters or purposes. A generous man will, nevertheless, cling, as if it were a family altar, to a name that has long been a rallying cry for himself and his compa- triots. The great question before us, however, is to be decided, not by feeling, but under the counsels of reason and patriotism. It was the last injunction given by the last one of the revolutionary Congresses to the American people, never to forget that the cause of America had always been, and that it must ever continue to be, the cause of human nature. The question then is, what is the course dictated to us by our love of country and of humanity V The nation wag founded on the simple and practically new principle of the- equal and inalienable rights of all men, and therefore it necessarily became a republic. Other Governments, founded on the ancient principle of the inequal- ity of men, are, by' force of an equal necessity, monarchies ot aristocracies. Whenever either of these kinds of Government loses by lapse of time and change of circumstances its elementary principle, whether of equality or ine- quality, thenceforward it takes a rapid and irresistible course toward a reor- ganization of the opposite kind. Wo one, here or elsewhere, is so disloyal to his country or to mankind as to be willing to see our republican system fail. All agree that in ever)' case, and throughout all hazards, aristocracy must be abhorred and avoided, and republican institutions must be defended and pre- served. Think it not strange or extravagant when I say that an aristocracy has- already arisen here, and that it is already undermining the Republic. Aa aristocracy could not arise in any country where there was no privileged class,, and no special foundation on which such a class could permanently stand. On the contrary, every State, however republican its Constitution may be, is sure to become an aristocracy, sooner or later, if it has a privileged class stand- ing firmly on an enduring special foundation ; and if that class is contimially growing stronger and stronger, and the unprivileged classes are continually •grovring weaker and weaker. It is not at all essential to a privileged class that it rest on feudal tenures, or on military command, or on ecclesiastical authority, or that its rights be hereditary, or even that it be distinguished by titles of honor. It may be even the more insidious and more dangerous for lacking all these things, because it will be less obnoxious to popular hostility. A privileged class has existed in this country, from an early period of its settlement. Slaveholders constitute that class. They have a special found- ation on which to stand — namely, personal dominion oy;r slaves. Conscience and sound policy forbid all men alike from holding slaves, but some citizens disregard the injunction. Some of the States enforce the inhibition ; other States neglect or refuse to enforce it. In all of the States, there are but three hundred and fifty thousand citizens who avail themselves of this peculiar indulgence; and those, protected by the laws of their States, cuii'iitute a privileged class. They confess themselves to be such a class, when they desig- nate the system of Slavery as a " peculiar'' institution. The spirit of the revolutionary age was adverse to that privileged class, America and Europe were firmly engaged then in prosecuting what was expected to be a speedy, complete, and universal abolition of African Slavery. Nearly all of the privileged class admitted that Slavery as a permanent system was indefensible, and favored its removal. They asked only, what seemed by no means unreasonable, some securities against a sudden, rash, and violent removal of the evil. Tiider these circumstances, even the most decided oppo- nents of Slavery consented to some provisions of the Federal Cor-stituticm which were inconsistent with the stern logic of equality that pervaded all its- other parts, and pervaded the whole of the Declaration of American Independ- ence, on which the Constitution itself was based. We are not to censure the fathers for these concessions; they had a union of the States to areata, and to their ardent and generous minds the voluntary removal of Slavery, by the action of the several States themselves, without Federal interference, seemed not only certain, but close at hand. These provisions of the Constitution were : First: That the foreign slave trade should not be abolished before 1S08. Second: That any law or regulation which any State might establish in favor of Freedom, should not impair the legal remedy, then supposed to exist by common law, for the lecapture, by legal process, in such State, of fugitives from labor or service, escaping from other States. Third: That three-fifths of all slaves should be counted, in settling the basis of representation in the several States. These three concessions, which in themselves seem very limited, ami almost harmless, are all that the fathers consciously made to the privileged class. But privileged classes always know well how to improve even any indirect advantages whkh the Constitution or laws of a country afford. Such indirect •dvtfntages they acquired from two other provisions of the Constitution : 1st. That provision which make3 the State authority independent and sovereign in municipal allairs, Slavery being understood to be purely municipal in its ♦lature. 2d. That provision which, out of tenderness to the small States, drives them a representation in the Seaate equal to that of the largest State. Freedom builds great States ; Slavery multiplies small States, and even ■dwarfs great ones. Tims we see that the American slaveholders are a privileged class, standing ■on a special aud permanent foundation, and that they are protected in their advantages by the organic laws. I might show a priori that a privileged class, thus established on an excep- tional principle, that is wrong in itself, and antagonistic to the fundamental principle of the Government, must necessarily be dangerous, if it be suffered to expand and aggrandize itself. But, unhappily, we are not left to the neces- sity of reporting to speculation on that subject. The policy of emancipation was set back in this country during the reaction against revolutionary princi- ples, which necessarily attended the reorganization of Government : and it was set back still more effectually by the consternation which followed the ■disastrous failure of the first republic in France. The privileged class promptly seized the advantages Avfeick the Constitution afforded, to fortify itself in the ■Federal Government. The last Federal acts directed against the privileged class were, the abolition of the foreign slave trade after 1808, and the eternal prohibition of Slavery in the broad and then unsettled region which extends from the north bank of the Ohio to the eastern shore of the Mississippi. Even the passage of that ordinance was, by its silence, assumed to imply a right on the .part of the privileged class to colonize with slaves the region lying south efthe Ohio and east of the Mississippi. Unlooked-for events have lent to the privileged class advantages which fcave more thsn counterbalanced the adverse effects of this early national legislation. The invention of the cotton gin, which easily separates tbe seed from the fibre, has made cotton an almost exclusive agricultural staple in the States of the privileged class, and an eminent commercial staple of the whole country. The national territory has necessarily been enlarged, from time to time, to accommodate an overgrowing population and an ever-increasing commerce. Favored by these circumstances, the privileged class have at the same time found, in a home production of slaves in Maryland and Virginia •and other States, a compensation for the loss of the African slave trade ; and they have not been slothful in unlearning all the fears and dismissing all the timidity and conciliation which marked their conduct during and immediately •after the revolutionary war. The admission of Kentucky, Tennessee, Missis- sippi, and Alabama, as slaveholding States, into the Union, seemed unavoida- ble, inasmuch as they were the overgrowth of some of the old thirteen States-; and thus these new States south of the Ohio, balancing the growing free States north of that river, served as a sort of balance between the privi- leged and the unprivileged classes, which it was not necessary to disturb. This was the first final partition of the unsettled territory of the United States between those classes. In 1S04, France ceded to the United States a broad belt, stretching along the western bank of the Mississippi, from the British possessions on the north, to the Spanish province of Texas on the south. This acquisition, which was equally necessary for the safety of the country and for the uses of commerce, stimulated the desire of the privileged class for an extension of their territory and an aggrandizement of their power. New Orleans, situated practically on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, was already at once an ancient slaveholding colony and an important commercial mart. It lay contiguous to the slave- holding States. Under these circumstances, it was without any resistance soon organized and admitted into the Union, with its ancient laws and •customs tolerating Slavery, St. Louis, though destined to acquire great commercial importance, was as yet an inconsiderable town, with few slave- holders and slaves. The Mississippi only divided it from the Northwest Terri- tory, which was already consecrated to Freedom. The best interests of the country required, and humanity demanded, that the Ordinance of 1787 should 4 be extended across the Mississippi. The privileged cla83r however, took pos- session of the region around St. Louis, and made partial settlements lower down on the west bank of the Mississippi. St. Louis and its environs matured as a State in 1810, and demanded admission with Slavery into the Union. Then, only thirty-two years after the passage of the Ordinance of 1787, and after its unanimous ratification by the American people, the privileged slass made common cause with the new slaveholding State, and, assuming a tone at once bold, insolent, and menacing, they denied the power of Congress, although in the Territories it was supreme and exclusive, and equally supreme t.ud exclusive in the admission of new States, to legislate at all against their privileges in the Territories, or to refuse admission to a new State, on the ground of its refusal to surrender or abate those privileges ; and they threat- ened in one loud voice to subvert the Union, if Missouri should be rejected. The privileged class -were backed then by the Senate of the United States, as they have been backed on all similar occasions since that time. They were met, however, with firmness and decision by the unprivileged class in the House of Representatives, and so Missouri failed then to be admitted as a slave State. The privileged class resorted to a new form of strategy — the strategy of compromise. They offered to be satisfied if Missouri only should be admitted as a slave State, while Congress should prohibit Slavery forever in all the residue of that part of the Louisiana purchase which lay north of the parallel of 36° 30' of north latitude — the territory lying between this parallel and the province of Texas, and constituting what is now the State of Arkansas, being left by implication to Slavery. This compromise was accepted, and thus diplomacy obtained for the privileged class immediate advantages, which had been denied to their clamor and passion. This compromise, how- ever, could have only the authority of a repealable act of Congress, so far as the prohibition of Slavery north of 36° 30' was concerned. Wise and great men contrived extraordinary forms to bind the faith of the privileged class to that perpetual inhibition. They gave to the compromise the nature and form of a contract, with mutual equivalents between the privileged class and the unprivileged class, which it would be dishonorable and perfidious on the part of the privileged class, at any time, on any grounds, or under any circum- stances, to annul or revoke, or even to draw in question. The}' proclaimed it to be a contract proper to be submitted to the people themselves, for their ratification, in the popular elections. It was so submitted to the people, and so ratified by them. By virtue of this compromise, Missouri came immediately into the Union as a slave State, and Arkansas followed soon afterward as a slave State, while, with the exception of Missouri, the compromise of 1787, by virtue of the same compromise, was extended across the Mississippi, along the parallel of 30° 30/, to the Rocky Mountains. Thus, and with such solemni- ties, was the strife of the privileged class of slaveholders for aggrandizement of territory finally composed and forever settled. It is not my purpose to discuss the policy or the justice of that great settle- ment. As in the case of the Constitution, the responsibility fop that great measure rests with a generation that has passed away. We have to deal with it only as a fact, and with the state of a Hairs that was established by it. The occupation of the new region west of the Mississippi, which had thus been saved for Freedom, was artfully postponed indefinittly, by dedicating it as a home for the concentrated but perishing Indian tribes. It sounds in favor of the humanity of the unprivileged class, if not of their prudence, that they neither remonstrated nor complained of that dedication. The success of the privileged class, in securing to themselves immediate- possession of Missouri and Arkansas, in exchange for the reversionary interest of the unprivileged class in the remainder of the Louisiana purchase, stimu- lated them to move for new national purchases of domain, which might yield them further acquisitions. Spain was unable to retain longer the slavehold- ing provinces of East Florida and West Florida, which lay adjacent to the slave States. They fell to the United States by an easy purshase, and the privileged class with due diligence procured their organization as a State, and its admission into the Union. The spell of territorial aggrandizement had fallen on the United States of America, and simultaneously the spell of disso- ution had fallen on the United States of Mexico. The privileged class on our side of the border entered Texas, established Slavery there in violation of Mexican laws, detached that territory from Mexico, and organized it as an independent sovereign State. Texas, thus independent and sovereign, sought annexation to the United States. In the very hour when the virtue of a suffi- cient number of the unprivileged classes was giving way to effect a constitu- tional annexation of Texas, the President of the United States, with a Senate not less subservient to the privileged class, executed a coup d'etat by which that State unlawfully, and in defiance of all precedent, came into the Union under a covenant stipulating that four new slave States might be created out of its territory and admitted as slave States, while, by a solemn mockery, an inconsiderable fragment that lay north of 36° 30' was ostentatiously dedicated 'to Freedom. There remained no other new territory within the United States ; and so, by this strange partition of Texas, there was a third final settlement of the pretensions of the privileged class ; and it was acquiesced in by the unprivileged class, who thought themselves secure in the old Northwest Terri- tory by the» Ordinance of 1787, and equally safe in Kansas and Nebraska by the Missouri Compromise. The public repose that followed the annexation of Texas was of short dura- tion. Mexico resented that offence. A war ensued, and terminated in the transfer of the northern portion of Mexico to the United States. The Mexican municipal laws forbade Slavery everywhere, and the new possessions were under that law. Not a whit the less, for that reason, did the privileged class demand either an equal partition, or that the whole should be opened to their colonization with slaves. The House of Representatives resisted these pre- tensions, as it had resisted similar ones before ; but the Senate seconded the privileged class with its accustomed zeal. So Congress was divided, and failed to organize civil Governments for the newly acquired Mexican territo- ries, and they were left under martial law. The question raised by the privi- 1-eged class went down to the electors. The people promptly filled the House cf Representatives with a majority sternly opposed to the extension of Slavery the breadth of a single square mile. They increased the force of the unprivi- leged class in the Senate, while they called to the Presidency General Taylor,- who, although himself a slaveholder, was committed to non-intervention on the question in Congress, and to execute faithfully whatever constitutional laws Congress should adopt. Under these circumstances, California and New Mexico, youthful communities, practically free from Slavery, and uncorrupted by the seductions of the privileged class or its political organs, hastened to establish Constitutions, and apply for admission as free States ; while the eccentric population of Deseret, indulging latitudinarian principles equally in matters of religion and of politics, prayed to be received into the Union as a State or as a Territory, and with or without Slavery, as Congress should pre- scribe. The privileged class remonstrated, and a seditious movement was organized in their behalf in the slaveholding States, to overawe Congress, if possible, and to inaugurate revolution if their menaces failed. You all know well the way of that memorable controversy. How eminent men yielded to the menaces without waiting for the revolution, and projected and tendered to the privileged class a new compromise, modeled after the already time- honored compromise of 1820. You all know how firmly, notwithstanding this defection of leaders honored and beloved, the House of Representatives, and even the Senate, repelled the compromise, and how firmly the unprivi- leged class of freemen throughout the Union demanded the unqualified and unconditional admission of California into the Union, and refused to allot any further territories to the privileged class, for the extension of the system of human bondage. You all remember, too, how in a critical hour the President sickened and died, and how the hearts of Congress and of all the people swooned at his grave, and thenceforward all was lost. You remember how the provisional successor of that lamented President with ominous haste accepted the resignation of his Cabinet, and committed the seals to a new one, pledged like himself to the adoption of the compromise which the people had condemned ; and how at last, after a painful struggle, its adoption was effected. I think, also, that you have not thus soon forgotten the terms of 6 that compromise, the fourth final and everlasting settlement of tho comfilrt between the privileged and the unprivileged classes of this Republic. You have not forgotten how the Ordinance of 1787, which excluded Slavery from the region northwest of the Ohio, was left to stand, as an institution too- sacred to be even questioned. How the Missouri Compromise, which extended that Ordinance across the Mississippi, and over all Kansas and Nebraska, was- made at once the authority, precedent, and formula, of the new compromise, and even declared to be an irrepealable law forever. How California, which refused to become a slave State, was grudgingly admitted into the Union as a free one. How the hateful and detestable slave aucti&ns were banished from, under the eaves of the Capitol, quite across to the opposite banks of the Potomac river. And how, in consideration of these magnanimous and vast concessions made by the privileged class, it was stipulated that Slavery should be continued in the District of Columbia as long as the privileged clas9 should require its continuance. New Mexico, with her free Constitution, was. superciliously remanded to her native mountains, while, without a hearing, her ancient and free territory was dismembered, and its fairest pajrt transfer- red to Texas, with the addition of ten millioa3 of dollars, to win its acceptance by that defiant privileged State. You remember how it was solemnly stipu- lated that Utah and New Mexico, if the slaveholders could corrupt them, should come into the Union, in due time, as slaveholding States ; and, finally, how the privileged class, so highly offended and exasperated, were brought to accept this compromise on th»ir part, by a re-enactment of the then obsolete fugitive slave law of 1793, with the addition of the revolting features of an attempted suspension of the habeas corpus; an absolute prohibition of the trial by jury; an effective repeal of vital rules of procedure and evidence, and the substitution of commissioners in place of courts of justice, in derogation of the Constitution. You all remember how laboriously and ostentatiously this compromise was associated with the time-honored forms and solemnities of the Missouri Compromise ; how it was declared, not the result of mere legis- lation, but a contract, with mutual equivalents, by the privileged with the unprivileged classes, irrepealable and even unainendable without perfidy and even treason against the Constitution and the Union. You all remember how, notwithstanding your protests and mine, it was urgently, violently, clamor- ously ratified and confirmed, as a full, fair, final, and perpetual adjustment, by the two great political conventions of the country, representing the whole people of the United States, assembled at Baltimore in 1852 ; and how the heroic and generous Scott was rejected, to bring into the Presidency one who might more safely be trusted to defend and preserve and establish it forever. Nevertheless, scarcely one year had elapsed, before the privileged class, using some of our own representatives as their instruments, broke up not only this Compromise of 1850, but even the Compromise of 1820 and the Ordinance of 1787, and obtained the declaration of Congress, that all these settlements, so far as they were adverse to the privileged class, were unconstitutional usurpations of legislative power. I do not stop to stigmatize or even to characterize these aggressions. Of what use would it be to charge perfidy, when the losses we deplore have resulted from our own imbecility and cowardice? I do not dwell, as others so often and so justly do, upon the atrocious usurpation of the government of Kansas by the slaveholders of Missouri, nor even on the barbarous and tyran- nical code which they have established to stifle Freedom in that Territory, nor even yet on the fraudulent and nefarious connivance of the President with the usurpers. Nor will I draw into this picture, already too darkly shaded, the personal humiliations which daily come home to yourselves in the conduct of your own affairs. You are commanded by an unconstitutional law of Congress to seize and deliver up to the members of that privileged class their- fugitive slaves, under pain of imprisonment and forfeiture of your estates. You may not interpose between the armed slaveholder and the wounded slave,, to prevent his being murdered, without coming under arrest for treason, nor may you cover his naked and lacerated limbs except by stealth. You have fought twenty years, and with but partial success, for the constitutional right to lay your remonstrances on the table of Congress. You may not tell tho freed slave wino reaches your borders that he is free, without being seized by -a Federal Coatrt, and condemned, without a trial or even an accusation, to an imprisonment without bail or mainprize, and without limitation of sentence. Your representatives in either House of Congress must speak with bated breath and humble countenance in presence of the representatives of the privileged class, lest justice be dented to your old soldiers when they claim their pensions, •or to your laborers when they claim the performance of their contracts with the Government. The President of the United States is reduced to the posi- tion of a deputy of the privileged class, emptying the treasury and marshalling battalions and ships of war to dragoon you into the execution of the Fugitive Slave Law on the one hand, while he removes Governors and Judges, at their command, who attempt to maintain lawful and constitutional resistance against them in the Territory of Kansas. The Vice President of the United -States and the Speaker of the House of Representatives are safe men, whom the privileged class can trust in every case. The care of the judiciary of the 'Territories, and even of the foreign relations, is intrusted in either Hous: to assured supporters of that class. Protection is denied to your wool, while it is freely given to the slaveholders sugar. Millions of acres of the public ■domain are freely given to Alabama, for railroads, and even as gratuities, while not a dollar can be obtained to remove the rocks of Hell Gate and the sands of the Overslaugh, or the bars in Lake St. Clair or those in the mouths of your Lake harbors. Canada, lying all along your northern borders, must not even be looked upon, lest you may lust after it, while millions upon millions are lavished in war and diplomacy to annex and spread Slavery over Louisiana, Florida, Texas, Mexico, Cuba, and Central America. Your liberty of speech, where is it ? You may not, without severe rebuke, speak of despotism in foreign lands, lest the slave overhear you on the plantations of the privi- leged class, or the foreign despot visit them, in retaliation for your unavailing sympathy. The national flag, the emblem of universal liberty, covers cargoes of slaves, not only in your own view, but flaunts defiance over them in foreign ports. Judges of United States Courts, safe under the protection of the Presi- dent and the Senate, charge grand juries, in advance of any question, that obnoxious and unequal Federal laws are constitutional and obligatory ; they give counsel to legislative bodies how to frame laws which they will sustain, instead of Waking to review those laws when enacted. They even convert the writ of Freedom to an engine of Slavery, and they peryert the power of punish- ing irregularities committed in their presence into the machinery of a tyranny as odious as that of the Star Chamber. The privileged class in Virginia imprison your seamen in their ports, in retaliation for the independence of your executive authorities ; and you are already in a doubtful struggle for the right to exclude the traffic in slaves from your own borders. I will only ask, in concluding this humiliating rehearsal, whether there is not in this favored country a privileged class; whether it does not stand on an enduring foundation; whether it is not growing stronger and stronger, while the unprivileged class grows weaker and weaker ; whether its further growth and extent would not be, not merely detrimental, but dangerous ; and whether there is any hope to arrest that growth and extension hereafter, if the attempt shall not be made now? The change, that has become at last so necessary, is as easy to be made as it is necessary. The whole number of slaveholders is only three hundred and fifty thousand, one-hundredth part of the entire population of the country. If you add their parents, children, immediate relatives and dependents, they are two millions — one-fifteenth part of the American people. Slavery is not, and never can be, perpetual. It will be overthrown either peacefully or lawfully under this Constitution, or it will work the subversion of the Constitution, together with its own overthrow. Then the slaveholders would perish in the struggle. The change can now be made without violence, and by the agency of the ballot-box. The temper of the nation is just, liberal, forbearing. It will contribute any money and endure any sacrifices to effect this great and important change; indeed, it is half made already. The House of Representa- tives is already yours, as it always must be when you choose to have it. The Senate of the United States is equally within your power, if you only will 8 persistently endeavor, for two years, to have it. Notwithstanding all the wron g that has been done, not another slave State ean now come into the Union. Make only one year's constant, decisive effort, and you can determine what States shall be admitted. The will exists, because the evil has become intolerable, and the need of a remedy is universally acknowledged. What, then, is wanted ? Organization I Organization ! Nothing but organization. Shall we organize ? Why not ? Can we maintain the revolution, so auspi- ciotfsly begun, without organization ? Certainly not. Are you apprehensive of failure, because the revolution is not everywhere and at all times equally successful? Was there ever a revolution that was equally successful at all times and everywhere? Certainly not. Do you say that you cannot abolish Slavery in the privileged States ? * We have no need, no purpose, no constitu- tional power, no duty, to do so. Providence has devolved that duty on others, and the organic law leaves it wisely to them. We have power to avert the extension of Slavery in the Territories of the Union, and that is enough. Do you doubt that power? Did not the statesmen of 1787 know the bounds of constitutional power? Somebody has municipal power in the unorganized Territories of the Union. Who is it? It is not any foreign State; it is not any of the American States ; it is not the people in the Territories. It is the Congress of the whole United States, and their power there is supreme. Are you afraid that the privileged class will not submit? The privileged class are human, and they are wise. They know just as well how to submit to just authority, firmly and constitutionally exercised, as they do how to extort unequal concessions by terror from timid men. Can the privileged class live without a union any better than you can? They would not remain and wrangle with you an hour, if they could do so. Can they ever hope to obtain another Union so favorable to them as this one, if this should be overthrown? Will they destroy themselves, that they may simply do harm to you? Did ever any" privileged class commit such an absurd suicide as this? Are you alone the keepers of the Union? Have not the privileged class interests as great to maintain in the Union, and are their obligations to maintain it differ- ent from your own? How shall we organize? The evil is a national one. The power and the influence and the organization of the privileged class pervade all parts of the Union. It knows no North, no South, no East, no West. It is stronger to-day on the bay of San Francisco, surrounded by freemen, than it is on Chesapeake bay, surrounded by slaves. It is not a sectional but a national contest on which we have entered. Our organization, therefore, must be a national one. The means of success are national. We must restore the demoralized virtue of the nation. We must restore the principle of equality among the members of the State — the principle of the sacredne'ss of the absolute and inherent rights of man. AVe want, then, an organization open to all classes of men, and that excludes none. We want a bold, out-spoken, free-spoken organization — one that openly proclaims its principles, its purposes, and its objects — in fear of God, and not of man — like that army, which Cromwell led, that established the Common- wealth of England. This is the organization we want. It is best to take an existing organization that answers to these conditions, if we can find one ; if we cannot find one 6uch, we must create one. Let us try existing parties by this test. Shall we take the Know Nothing party, or the American party, as it now more ambitiously names itself? It is a purely sectional organization. In the privileged States, it scouts the principle of the equality of man, and justifies the unbounded claims of the privileged class. In the unprivileged States, it stifles its voice and suppresses your own free speech, lest it may be overheard beyond the Potomac. In the privileged States, it justifies all the wrongs committed against you. In the unprivileged States, it affects to condemn them, but protests that they shall not be redressed. I speak not now of its false and prevaricating rituals, it3 unlawful and unchristian oaths, its clandestine councils and its dark conspiracies, its mobs and its murders, proscribing and slaying men for their conscience' sake and for the sake of their nativity. I have spoken of them ofteu enough and freely 9 enough heretofore. I say now only that all these equally unfit this so-called American party for any national duty, and qualify it to be, what it has thus far been, an auxiliary Swiss corps, engaging the friends of Freedom in prema- ture skirmishes at one time, and decoying them into ambushes prepared by their enemies at another. Let it pass by. Shall we unite ourselves to the Democratic party ? If so, to which section or faction? The Hards, who are so stern in defending the aggressions of the privileged class, and in rebuking the Administration through whose agency they are committed? or the Softs, who protest against these aggressions, while they sustain and invigorate that Administration ? Shall we suppose the Democratic party reunited and consolidated? What is it, then, but the same party which has led in the commission of all those aggressions, save one, and which urged, counselled, and co-operated in that, and claims exclu- sively the political benefits resulting from it? Let the Democratic party pass. Shall we report ourselves the Whig party? Where is it? Gentle shepherd, tell me where ? Four years ago, it was a strong and vigorous party, honora- ble for energy, noble achievements, and still more for noble enterprises. In 1852, it was united and consolidated, and moved by panics and fears to emulate the Democratic party in its practiced subserviency to the privileged class, and it yielded in spite of your remonstrances and mine. The privileged class, who had debauched it, abandoned it, because they knew that it could not vie with its rival in the humiliating service it proffered them ; and now there is neither Whig party nor Whig south of the Potomac. How is it in the unprivileged States ? Out of New York, the lovers of Free- dom, disgusted with its prostitution, forsook it, and marched into any and every other organization. We have maintained it here, and in its purity, until the aiders and aoettors of the privileged class, in retaliation, have wounded it on all sides, and it is now manifestly no longer able to maintain and carry forward, alone and unaided, the great revolution that it inaugurated. He is unfit for a statesman, although he may be a patriot, who will cling even to an honored and faithful association, when it is reduced so low in strength and numbers as to be entirely ineffectual amid the contests of great parties by which republics are saved. Any party, when reduced so low, must ultimately dwindle and dwarf into a mere faction. Let, then, the Whig party pass. It committed a grievous fault, and grievously hath it answered it. Let it march out of the field, therefore, with all the honors. The principles of true Democrats and the principles of true Whigs remain throughout all changes of parties and of men, and, so far as they are sound, they are necessarily the same. Such true Democrats and true Whigs are now ready to unite on those sound principles common to both. Neither of these two classes can or ought to insist on forcing a defective organization, with a stained banner, upon the other. The Republican organization has sagaciously seen this, and magnanimously laid a new, sound, and liberal platform, broad enough for both classes to stand upon. Its principles are equal and exact justice ; its speech open, decided, and frank. Its banner is untorn in former battles, and unsullied by past errors. That is the party for us. I do not know that it will always, or even long, preserve its courage, its moderation, and its consistency. If it shall do so, it will rescue and save the country. If it, too, shall become unfaithful, as all preceding parties have done, it will, without sorrow or regret on my part, perish as they are perishing, and will give place to another truer and better one. So long as the Republican party shall be firm and faithful to the Constitu- tion, the Union, and the rights of Man, I shall serve it, with the reservation of that personal independence which is my birthright, but at the same time with the zeal and devotion that patriotism allows and enjoys. I do not know, and personally I do not greatly care, that it shall work out its great ends this year, or the next, or in my lifetime ; because I know that those ends are ulti- mately sure, and that time and trial are the elements which make all great reformations sure and lasting. I have not thus far lived for personal ends or temporary fame, and I shall not begin so late to live or labor for them. I have hoped that I might leave my countr}- somewhat worthier of a lofty destiny, and the rights of human nature somewhat safer. A reasonable ambition must 10 always be satisfied with sincere and practical endeavors. If, among those who shall come after us, there shall be any curious inquirer who shall fall upon a name so obscure as mine, he shall be obliged to confess that, however unsuccessfully I labored for generous ends, yet that I nevertheless was ever faithful, ever hopeful. THE CONTEST AND THE CRISIS DELIVERED IN BUFFALO, OCTOBER 19, 1855. I am always proud of my native State, when I stand in the presence of the mountains under whose shadow I was born, or on the shores of the silvery lakes among which I dwell. I am prouder still, when, looking off from the vestibule of the Capitol, I see the Mediterranean waters of the continent, obe- dient to her command, mingle their floods with the tides of the world-encir- cling ocean. No less buoyant is my pride now, when, standing here in the presence of Niagara, the marvel of nature itself, I see New York at once unlocking the gates of the West, and standing sentinel on the frontier of the Republic, whose safety constitutes the hope of the human race. Speaking on such a stage, how can I do otherwise than speak thoughtfully, sincerely, ear- nestly ? Ye good men of Erie! The Republican Party is sounding throughout all our borders a deep-toned alarum for the safety of the Constitution, of Union, and of Liberty. Do you hear it? The Republican Party declares that, by means of recent treacherous measures adopted by Congress and the President of the United States, the constitutional safeguards of citizens, identical with the rights of human nature itself, are undermined, impaired, and in danger of being overthrown. It declares, that if those safeguards be not immediately renewed and restored, the Government itself, hitherto a fortress of Republican- ism, will pass into the hands of an insidious aristocracy, and its batteries be turned against the cause which it was reared to defend. The Republican Party is not deficient, either in intelligence, in earnest patri- otism, in moderation, or in numbers. Its members everywhere are among those who, in all our political, moral, and religious associations, have been as en- lightened and as efficient as their fellows. Those who constitute its masses have, some for long periods, and others throughout long lives, been consistent supporters, not only of the Constitution, but also of all those principles of Jus- tice, Equality, and Liberty, which are the basis of Republican Government. Not one of them, so far as we know, has ever counselled seditious or factious measures. The Republican Party holds either paramount or at least respecta- ble rank and authority in thirteen of the States, with either the whole or a majority of the Representatives of each of those States in the Federal Union. It is, indeed, popularly regarded as a Party of yesterday. But, practically, it is old and well known in the field of public affairs. Its policy is to incul- cate perpetual jealousy of the increase and extension of Slavery, and the plant- ation, organization, and admission of free States in the common Territories of the United States. This policy is even older than the Constitution itself. It was the policy of Jay, Madison. Jefferson, and Washington. It was early exercised in prohibiting the African slave trade, and devoting the Northwest Territory to impartial Freedom. Although it has not always prevailed in the Federal Government, it has, without change or even the shadow of turning, been always the policy of the State of New York, which has, continually, been the wisest member of the Confederacy, and as loyal as any other member. Those who have cherished this policy have, however, been divided and distrb- 11 uted among the many parties which have existed, until, by reason of that sep- aration alone, the policy itself has been arrested and defeated. Defeated, but not successfully repressed, that policy has at last worked out a disintegration of all the parties by whom, it was so unwisely and disloyally discarded. Its advocates, thus disengaged and released from diverse and uncongenial rela- tions, have come together by means of a just and natural affinity, and have organized, and they now constitute the Republican Party. Slavery, contrary to the expectations of the founders of the Republic, still exists in this, the seventy-ninth year of Independence ; and it has at once a purpose to perpetuate itself, and apparently a reasonable hope of at least a long continuance. On the other hand, the love of Equality, springing alike and all at once from the consciences, the judgments, and the hearts of the American people, is irrepressible and imperishable — and so there will remain an undying jealousy of the aggrandizement of Slavery. The Republican Party fosters that jealousy, and directs it to the proper means of active resistance. Thus it happens, that as the Republican Party is not a party of yesterday, it is also not merely a party of to-day, but a durable, perpetual organization. The slaveholders, always sufficiently united and consolidated, have so im- proved their advantages, that their aggressions have become at last intolerable. They have rushed into a dead-lock with their opponents. The nation's whole breadth is the field of contest. A changeless sway of the Eepublic, throughout its future existence, is the object of this majestic strife. So the slaveholders on the one side, and the Republican Party on the other, are now, and for an indefinite period must continue to be, not merely the chief combatants, but practically the only combatants in the Union. Such is the Republican Party, and such are the circumstances under which it appeals to you to enlist under its banner, and give it your enlightened and effective co-operation. Shall I have on your part a fair and candid hearing in its behalf? I am well aware that at this moment large popular masses are at rest, while others, broken up in the general wreck of former parties, are moving capri- ciously, and in divergent directions. I know equally well that popular masses, at rest, have a sort of vis inertia to overcome ; and that popular masses, sud- denly and violently disturbed, cannot all at once compose themselves, and or- ganize. I apprehend, therefore, that here, as elsewhere, there may be, on the part of some, a disposition to indolence, and on the part of others a disposition to avoid the organization which seems to me to have become necessary. Both of these dispositions persuade to neutrality. Are you indeed sure, then, that neutrality will be right, even if you find it possible? Is Liberty to be maintained in this Republic, otherwise than through the conflicts of great parties ? Where there are no great parties, there are either many small factions, or no parties or factions whatever. A State that surrenders itself to the confused contests of small parties or factions, is sink- ing inevitably towards despotism. A State that has no parties or factions at all, is a despotism already. In every conflict between great parties, (speaking without reference to the motives of leaders or of masses,) is there not one side that is absolutely or rel- atively the right side, and which, because it is the right side, is the side favor- able to the public welfare and the public safety ; and also another side that is absolutely or relatively the wrong side, and therefore the side detrimental to the public welfare, and injurious to the public safety? Are the welfare and safety of the whole body politic anything else than the welfare and safety of all its individual members? Can I justly expect you to defend my interest, and to assure my safety, if I will not defend and guard them myself? In an ancient Republic, it was made a capital crime to refuse to take a side in every political contest that agitated the commonwealth. The penalty was indeed too severe, but was not the policy of the law just and wise? Still you fear agitation, and desire repose. Was not the British Commonwealth free from disturbance, when it so suddenly went down, and the Stuarts renewed their hateful dominion? Was not the late French Republic distracted by petty fac- tions, regardless of the constitution and its safety, when the coup d'etat of Louis Napoleon placed him upon the throne, and sent the^Republicans of France to prison, to exile, and to death ? Quiet and repose are indeed desira- 12 ble, when they can be safely enjoyed ; but thej^can be safely enjoyed only when they come at intervals of great activity, and repair and fit the wearied commonwealth for renewed watchfulness. Can you maintain neutrality ? If you enlist into or remain associated with the Democratic Party, or either of its sections, that is to engage directly in the contest. Even if your party or section disavow opposition to Freedom, all its successes enure to the advantage of the slaveholders. Is neutrality easy to be maintained, amid the excitement of political contests ? Zealous men in opposing parties mutually respect each other, if they are generous ; but they agree in despising the timid and trimming citizen. In every campaign, the place of greatest danger is the neutral ground lying between the two liuee, because it is raked by the fire of both armies. Perhaps you think the immunities of neutrality may be secured by remain- ing in some independent outside association. How long do you think any con- siderable mass of American citizens — enlightened, open, manly, ardent, as they are — will be amused or interested in the mummeries of a merely private, secret, selfish, bigoted, proscriptive cabal, and its stale debates about the proper con- ditions of naturalization, and the claims of adopted citizens to the privilege of gracing the parades of the militia on muster days, and the non-conformity of Catholic clergy to the approved Protestant tenures of churches and burying grounds, when the discussion of the great question, whether this shall be a land of Freedom or a land of Slavery, shall have actually begun, and every popular tribune is occupied ? When the sea is calm, light and fanciful barks sport safely and gaily on its surface, among its merchantmen and its ships of war. But when the storm king lashes the waves, and they rise up to kiss his feet, the fantastical craft, no matter how broad its streamers, or how sharp its keel, or how dexterous its navigator, suddenly disappears. I conclude, therefore, that you all, if not now, yet soon enough, will take one side or the other in this g*at controversy. Which side ? It will be the side on which Justice, Equality, and Freedom, shall be found ; and, therefore, on which final success and triumph shall be found. Which side is that? Even the mathematician cannot prove a self-evi- dent truth in his science ; nor can I demonstrate a self-evident truth in poli- tics. To assert that Justice, Equality, or Freedom, may be found on the side of those who are laboring to fortify and extend Slavery, is one of those para- doxes which pensioned Error requires us to refute. I may be able to illustrate its absurdity. Justice, Equality, and Freedom, in political discussions, relate to individual men and masses of men in the State. The old Roman State con- sisted of members constituting three classes. 1st. Patricians or privileged cit- izens. 2d. Plebeians or unprivileged citizens. 3d. Slaves, equally held by both of the other classes. All the politics of that great and powerful people, whether of peace or war, domestic or foreign, turned on the ever-changing balances of these three classes, and chiefly on that of the two first. In the United States, there are also three classes. Slaveholders, Non-slavenolders, and Slaves. From the foundation of our system, and even from an early period, in the Rev- olutionary War itself, all American politics, whether of peace or war, and whether lomestic or foreign, have mainly turned, as they are now conspicu- ously turning, with the vibrations of the balances between these three classes, and chiefly those of the balances between the two first. Always the Slave- holders, apprehensive of danger to property and pretensions anomalous and obnoxious, seek to fortify themselves, with blind disregard to the rights and interests of Non-slaveholders. Always the Non-slaveholders, having an increas- ing consciousness that Slavery in any degree is injurious to the State, and dan- gerous in proportion to its strength, seek to counteract the policy of the Slave- holders by diffusing the spirit of Freedom. The cause of the Non-slaveholders is assumed by the Republican Party, and by no other party, sect, or faction. On which side, then, may we expect that Justice, Equality, and Liberty, will be foundj The opposition, however, tell us they cannot yet see that Slaveholders may not possibly have Justice on their side. Let us try to make the matter plain. Slaveholders arfrinen engaged in the occupations of society, and they are a power in the State. Non-slaveholders, using only free labor, are human also, 13 and another power in the State; Their systems clash, their interests conflict, their ambitious conflict. The one power strives to extend, the other to circum- scribe, Slavery. The Republicans, by succession, are the party who have op- posed all the political concessions which have hitherto been male to Slavery. They opposed successfully the introduction of Slavery into the Northwest Ter- ritory. They opposed, with partial success, the extension of Slavery in the Territory acquired from France. They opposed, with partial success, the ex- tension of Slavery in the State of Texas. They opposed, with partial success, the extension of Slavery in the Territory obtained by conquest from Mexico. They opposed the abrogation of the restriction in favor of Freedom contained in the Missouri Compromise. They now demand the admission, not only of free States, but also of free States only, into the American Union. The Slave- holders are the party by whose power and influence all the enlargements of Slavery within the United States have been made. On which side, then, are Justice, Equality, aud Freedom ? Answer me upon your honors and your con- sciences. An immediate issue involves the question whether Kansas shall be rescued from jeopardy of Slavery, aggravated perhaps by the horrors of civil war, and brought into'the Union as a free State, notwithstanding the dereliction of Con- gress and the treachery of the President of the United States. This issue is to be decided by the present Congress, or possibly continued before the next Con- gress, under a new Administration. The Republican Party are committed to the rescue of Kansas. Is it not just that Kansas shall be a free State? Is it not an inherent right of every community to be free, if it desires to be so ? AYhat does your Declaration of Independence mean, if it do not mean that ? Was not Freedom pledged to Kansas in 1820, by the slaveholders themselves ? Was not that pledge surreptitiously and perfidiously broken in 1854, by the Kansas Territorial act ? Was not Freedom pledged even by that act to the people of Kansas, if they should desire to be free? Is not even that pledge shamefully broken by the usurpation of the Missouri slaveholders ? Let the Republican Party prevail in this and in the next canvass, and Kansas will be- come a free State. Let the Republican party fail, and Kansas will inevitably be a slave State. On which side, then, are Justice, Equality, and Freedom ? Answer me, as you will expect to answer at the bar of the public opinion of mankind. The sophists return to the argument with new and various dilemmas. They are not satisfied that Congress had the power to enact the restriction contained in the Missouri Compromise of 1820. Grant that they had not. Vet the peo- ple of Kansas have the right now to establish a free State. But Congress had constitutional power to enact that restriction. It was identical with the Ordi- nance of 1787. That Ordinance was established simultaneously with the passing and adoption of the Constitution, and successive constitutional Con- gresses have ratified and confirmed it. Did not the statesmen of 1787 under- stand the constitutional powers of Congress ? Again : There is no part of the territory of the United States over which there is not plenary absolute sovereignity residing somewhere. "Where does that sovereignty reside? In the people of the United States. By whom is the legislative power of that sovereignty exercised? By Congress alone. Con- gress can make all " needful rules and regulations " concerning the public lands and other property of the United States. The prohibition of Slavery was the most needful of all rules and regulations. How pitiful is the quibble built on a criticism of the terms of this grant, when the Constitution contains no other grant of legislative power over the Territories, and the entire estab- lishment of government in the Territories rests on this one grant only ! The opposition tell us, that if Congress could prohibit Slavery in Territo- ries, then they might establish it there ; and hence they argue against the power to prohibit. No I Congress can establish Slavery nowhere. Slavery was never established rightfully anywhere. Nor was it ever established by law. It is in violation of every line of the Declaration of Independence, and of the whole summary of personal rights contained in the Constitution. It is derogatory from the absolute rights of Human Nature, and no human power can subvert those rights. On which side, then, are Justice, Equality, and Free- 14 dorn? Answer, as you Would have your Constitution stand a charter of Freedom, or be perverted to the overthrow of the Rights of Mankind. But, granting that Justice, Freedom, and Equality, are on the side of the Republican Party, we are asked, What guaranties can it give of loyalty to the Constitution and the Union? The question is an insult to your State, 'to the memories of its founders, and the memories of your fathers. Are loyalty and patriotism peculiar virtues of slaveholders only? Are sedition and treason natural vices of men, who, fearing God and loving Liberty for themselves, would therefore extend its blessings to all mankind? What is there inherent in the nature of Slavery, to make slaveholders loyal to Institutions of Freedom and Equality ? What is there inherent in the nature of Freedom, to make those who possess, cherish, and defend it, disloyal to its noble and necessary Insti- tutions ? We give the guaranty of principles identical with the principles of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. We give the guaran- ties of peaceful, just, and loyal lives, marked with a patience that has endured as long as they were Jolerable, and without even a ruffli-ag of the temper, not only the insults of slaveholders, but their menaces of disunion. Can slave- holders give better guaranties than these ? Will they even give you any guar- anties of fidelity to the Constitution and the Union? No, they argue only in threats of the subversion of both. The apologists of Slavery, thus met, change front suddenly, and ask M whether it is safe to brave these menaces of disunion. I answer — Yes, yes 1 Interests of a thousand kinds— material, social, moral, and political — affections springing from the very constitution of our nature — bind us non-slaveholders to this Union. The slaveholders, in spite of all these threats, arc bound to it by the same bonds, and they are bound to it also by a bond peculiarly their own — that of dependence on it for their own safety. Three millions of slaves are a hostile force constantly in their presence, in their very midst. The ser- vile war is always the most fearful form of war. The world without sympa- thizes with the servile enemy. Against that war, the American Union is the only defence of the slaveholders— tbeir only protection. If ever they shall, in a season of madness, recede from that Union and provoke that war, they will soon come back again. Nor are these threats the thrcRts of slaveholders themselves. They are argu- ments of politicians in behalf of the slaveholders. No man, heated by passion or the spirit of controversy, can safely pledge his future conduct. Reason will decide that for him, when the contemplated emergency shall have come. Neither can these politicians pledge the future conduct of the slaveholders. They will decide for themselves, when the time for their acquiescence comes. No mass of men in this country are so grossly libelled by their enemies as the slaveholders are by their friends. 1 know many of them well. I have seen them in their homes, on their plantations, and in their social circles. I never knew a disloyal man amongst them. But, even if the case were otherwise, are we always to submit to threats in- stead of arguments — to refer everything to the umpirage of passion— to sur- render everything to those who hold us in duress by our fears? If this is to be the rule of conduct, how long shall we have anything valuable, in Policy, Justice, Equality, or Freedom, to surrender? I know not how it may affect you, but every nerve and fibre and element of manhood within me is stretched to its utmost tension by these perpetual appeals to the ignoble instinct of fear, and not to the impartial counsel of my conscience and my judgment. Last comes one who with seeming meekness asks us to consider whether it is wise to jeopard the safety and happiness of twenty-five millions of white men, in a vain effort to mitigate the sufferings of only three millions of negroes ? Humane, cautious, paternal, conscientious, man! I might join issue, and ask where, in the ethics either of Government or of Christianity, you find authority to hold three millions of men in bondage, to promote the welfare or even to secure the safetv of twenty-five millions of other men. But that argument belongs to the Abolitionists of Slavery, who do not reckon me in their number, and whose objects in this election are far more comprehensive than those of the Republican Party which I defend. I leave the rights and the interests of the slaves in the StateB to their own care and that of their advocutes; I simply 15 ask whether the safety and the interests of twenty-fire millions of free lion- slaveholding white men ought to be sacrificed or put in jeopardy for the con- venience or safety of three hundred and lifty thousand slaveholders? I hear no answer. There can be no answer, unless the apologists of Slavery shall unblushingly assert that slaveholders, in their intercourse with non-slaveholders, arc calm, tolerant, just. How is the fact? The non-slaveholder in the slave State is allowed no independence, no neutrality. He must support, maintain, and defend Slavery. The non-slaveholders constitute only a second estate in every slaveholding community ; whips, pistols, knives, enforce not merely th'ir silence, but their active partisanship. The right of free speech is lost to them, the right of suffrage is valueless to them, the honors and rewards of public office are denied to them. In Kansas, now by usurpation a slave Territory, the utterance of this speech, calm and candid although I mean it to be, would be treason ; the reading and circulation of it in the Buffalo Express would be punished with death. Hitherto, this tyranny of slaveholders over non-slave- holding citizens has been mainly confined to slaveholding communities. But Slavery has of late arrogantly claimed to be national. Congress is sanctioning the usurpation, and the Federal Courts and even State Courts are boldly enforcing it. In violation of the Constitution, Congress compels the non-slave- ■ holders in the free States to capture and deliver the fugitive slave. Congress at its last session was on the eve of subverting the original, honored jurisdic- tion of State Courts over Federal officers accused of offences against the per- sonal rights of the citizen. The ancient writ of habeas corpus has become a remedy in the capture of slaves, and the process of punishment for contempt suffices to imprison a non-slaveholding citizen, without indictment, trial, of conviction, without bail or mainprize, and without limitation ot sentence, where a slaveholder is the prosecutor. Are not these invasions of State rights fearfully premonitory that Slavery is to become a universally ruling power throughout the Republic ? Nevertheless, and in view of all these things, the apologists of Slavery ask, Why bring these issues into a merely State election ? Who brought them here? What are the platforms of the Hards, the Softs, and the Know Noth- ings, but issues with the Republican Party by demurrer or by denial tendered by themselves? Can you organize a Republican National Party one year, and dissolve it the next, and yet restore it in a third year, to accommodate local politics? Why have the parties in this State, always competent to control the action of the Federal Government, left these national grievances to reach this intolerable height ? Why should not the Legislature, the magistrates, and the ministerial officers, of the State of New York, be men who dare to defend and will defend the rights of its citizens? Will not the Senators to be elected this year, constitute a part of the electoral body which will choose a Senator in Congress for the State next year? Away, then, with these subterfuges. I dwell briefly on the momentous importance of this crisis- We are indeed sixteen free States to fifteen slave States, and numerically we have a majority of representatives in both Houses of Congress. So we had when the Missouri Compromise restriction was abrogated. You have no reliable major- ity in either House, unless you instruct, support, and maintain them at home. If you do this, there is an end to the extension of Slavery. If you do not, Slavery, which is now firmly planted on the coast of Mexico, and which ex- tends upward to the border of Kansas, will cross that border, and fasten its outposts on the southern border of British America. Thus the free States will be shut out from the Pacific coast. Divided by this wall, the free States become imbecile, and Slavery grasps the dominion of the Republic- Dominion over this Republic, by whomever exercised, is dominion over the Continent and all its islands. Where will Freedom, impartial Freedom, find a refuge ? Will it even find one in British America? Are you willing to be driven to find it- there? If it cannot be maintained here, can it be secured there? Shall this be the inglorious end of the Republican system planted at Plymouth— this the inglorious end of the Republic delivered by Lafayette, organized by Hamilton, and consolidated by Washington? Tell me not that these are exaggerations. Forbear gnch censures, until you 16 can show me when or where I have sounded a false alarm, or exaggerated any one of the dangers through which, in the course of this long strife with the slaveholders, we have been passing. I am indeed earnest ! I have seen Slavery in the slave States, and Freedom in the free States ; I have even seen both Slavery and Freedom in this State ; I know too well the evils of the former, to be willing to spare any effort to pre- vent their return. The experience of New York tells the whole argument against Slavery Extension, the whole argument for Universal Freedom. Sup- pose that, fifty years ago, New York, like Virginia and Maryland, had clung to Slavery, where now would have been these three composite millions of free- men, the choice and flower of Europe nnd America? In that case, would superstition and false national pride have needed to organize a secret cabal, affiliated by unlawful oaths, to proscribe the exile and his children for their nativity or their conscience' sake? Where would then have been the Erie Canal, the Genesee Valley Canal, the Oswego Canal, the Seneca and Cayuga Canal, the Crooked Lake Canal, the Chemung Canal, the Chenango Canal, the Black River Canal, the Champlain Canal— where the imperial New York Cen- tral Railroad, the Erie Railroad, and the Ogdensburg Railroad, with their branches penetrating not only every inhabited district in this State, but every •inhabited region also in adjacent States and in British America? "Where would have been the Colleges, Academies, and, above all, the free common schools, yielding instruction to children of all sects and in all languages ? Where the Asylums and other public charities, and, above all, that noble emigrant char- ity which crowns the State with such distinguished honor? Where these ten thousand churches and cathedrals, renewing on ever)- recurring Sabbath day the marvel of Pentecqst, when the sojourner from every land hears the gospel of Christ preached to him in his own tongue ? Where would have been the steamers, the barges, brigs, and schooners, which crowd this harbor of Buffalo, bringing hither the productions of the Mississippi Valley and of the Gulf Coast, in exchange for the fabrics of the Atlantic Coast and of Europe, and for the teas and spices of Asia 1 Where the coasting vessels, the merchant ships, the clip- pers, the whale ships, and the ocean mail steamers, which are rapidly concen- trating in our great seaport the Commerce of the World ? Where the Ameri- can navy, at once the representative and champion of the cause of universal Republicanism? Where your inventors of steamboats, of electric telegraphs, and of planing machines — where your ingenious Artisans — where your Artists — where vour mighty Pre3S, the Courier and inquirer, the Tribune, the Times, and even 'the Herald itself, defender of Slavery as it is? Where your twenty cities— and where, above all, the merry, laughing Agricultural Indus- try of native-born and exotic laborers, enlivening the whole broad landscape, from the Lake coast to the Ocean's side ? Go, ask Virginia— go, ask even noble Maryland, expending as she is a giant's strength in the serpent's coils, to show you her people, canals, railroads, universities, schools, charities, com- merce, cfties, and cultivated acres. Her silence is your expressive answer. Once more: Spaniards planted slave States in America; England planted not only slave States, but free ones. Spain planted twice as many as England, and cultivated them with more assiduous and maternal care. The Anglo- American free States are all of them strong and vigorous, and already over- shadow the Continent, Europe regards them with respect and admiration. There is not one Spanish American State that is truly self-subsisting and inde- pendent. Sciolists talk of Anglo-Saxon blood. No nobler blood than the Iberian ever coursed through human veins. But the Spaniard planted only slave States. The Anglo-Saxon planted free ones. WASHINGTON, D. C. PUBLISHED BY THE REPUBLICAN ASSOCIATION. TENTH ENGLISH EDITION. BUELL AND BLANCHARD, PRINTERS. 1850.